WordPress 5.0 – Gutenberg & Divi – When and how to update

If you are keen to test out WordPress 5.0 and Divi 3.18, here are some things to consider before jumping in.

Gutenberg is a major update and there will be months of kinks to work out for the entire WordPress community. It has far reaching implications for all plugins and themes. Many challenges will only become apparent in the aftermath of the update.

It may be a good idea to delay running updates for some weeks. Especially since this WP 5.0 update is not security related. That means you can sit and watch from the sidelines for a little while and let people solve the issues before you jump in yourself.

Immediate impact

For Divi Den Pro, we just became aware that this new combination of updates prevents Divi Den Pro layouts from being selectable in the Divi Visual Builder. This affects only the Visual Builder.

We are already beginning updates but it will take a bit of time to work through everything. We are in communication with the Elegant Themes Dev Team and they are working on fixes. More updates to follow.

How does it affect you?

The easiest option don’t update for some time. Hit the pause button. But if you absolutely must update, then keep reading.

What to do depends on your preferred method to customise Divi Layouts. Classic or Visual.
If you decide to update consider the following:

If you use the “Classic Backend Builder” – you should update the divi settings to Enable Classic Editor. If you are using WordPress 5.0 or above, a new option will appear in Divi > Theme Options > Builder > Advanced > Enable Classic Editor. Select and save settings. (Pls note that this option also disables Gutenberg completely)

If you use the “Divi Visual Builder” –  this is where things get more tricky.  At the moment some things work – others don’t.
Like loading layouts from the visual builder – there is no way to load it directly because there is no “tab” for Divi Den Pro.

We are working with Elegant Themes to find a solution for this. The best option now is to delay updating WordPress and Divi until we have a fix. Please hang in there while we work out a suitable solution.

Please contact our support if you have any questions.